


Uncanny Valley

by mindyourfingers



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Floatie AU, Gen, Nice Pennywise, more like asshole guard dog/big sib/parent/whatever Pennywise, the author's glaring lack of fucks to give, unsolicited book references, warnings tagged by chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-02-02 06:19:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12721245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindyourfingers/pseuds/mindyourfingers
Summary: Derry was Its personal killing-pen. It had no reason to get acquainted with the livestock, until one stormy autumn in 1988.Floatie AU drabble repository.





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stormdrain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna leave this up in the air, or at least hint at it in flashbacks, but I'm never any good at self-restraint, now am I? Of course I'm not, if this fic's mere existence is any indication.
> 
> Warning for whatever might've offset you about the stormdrain scene, and implied family dysfunction if you squint real hard and grasp at straws.

Two yellow eyes were open wide in the sewer.

Georgie yelped and reared back, landing rigidly onto the wet street. The eyes stayed, floating bizarrely in place. _Gotta be a cat,_ he reasoned. _Maybe it’s Miss Tomlinson’s..._

Dad always told him to be a good neighbor—he could get her to check it out, and if it _wasn’t_ Bluebell, then maybe she could help anyway. Getting the strength up in his knees, he went to go do just that when the stormdrain spoke up.

“Hiya, Georgie!”

In the black of the sewer, the eyes moved, bringing with them a white face and red lips. A man—though nothing like any man Georgie had seen before. This one’s only visible features were a puffy Victorian collar, like the ones on court jesters in Georgie’s picture books, and two stakes of red makeup that branched off his smiling mouth and up onto his cheeks.

A crisp white glove rose, cupping the S.S. Georgie.

“What a nice boat!” the man in the sewer said. He had rabbit teeth and—Georgie couldn’t believe it—blue eyes. Not yellow by any stretch of the imagination. “Do you want it back?”

The little boy remembered his manners. “Um. Yes, please.”

To his dismay, the man lowered the boat back out of sight. “You look like a nice boy. I bet you have a lot of friends,” he continued.

What did _that_ have to do with anything? Unbidden, Georgie’s mind went to Dorsey, all the fun they’d had on the playground, how they’d swapped snacks in the cafeteria…and Dorsey’s funeral, and how the last things they’d ever said to each other were meaningless “Goodbye!”s. Did Dorsey still count as a friend, even though he wasn’t still…?

Yes, he did. Of course he did. “Three, but my brother’s my best-best.”

“Where is he?” One of the man’s eyes—how could Georgie have thought they were _yellow?_ —was off-kilter, and he was talking in a gentle, amicable way— the tone strange adults used when you first met them. A glint of moisture appeared by its chin—drool, Georgie recognized.

“In bed, sick,” he replied.

“I bet I could cheer him up. I’ll give him a balloon!”

Georgie nodded tersely and looked up Witcham Street, towards home. He didn’t have the heart to tell him that Bill was too old for balloons, and in any case, he kind of gave Georgie the creeps. Something about him wasn't right, and it made Georgie want to get his boat back and run home as soon as possible.

But when he looked back at the man, those big blue eyes poking out of the shadows had grown contrite.

“Do you want a balloon too, Georgie?” he asked, ending with another smile. He must've thought Georgie was offended that Bill could get a balloon and not him.

“I’m not supposed to take stuff from strangers.”

The inviting smile grew into a keen, bashful one.

“Oh! Well, I’m Pennywise, the Dancing Clown!” Midway through, he shook his shoulders, jingling hidden Christmas bells merrily. Georgie giggled at the sound.

Pennywise the Dancing Clown lifted his free hand to his chest. “Pennywise, meet Georgie. Georgie, meet Pennywise. Now we aren’t strangers, are we?”

“I guess not,” Georgie said, smiling. Maybe the clown wasn’t all bad. He was _weird,_ true, but he seemed nice. He must have wanted to be friends.

A backstage _mew_ broke his attention. He looked up through the rain and saw Miss Tomlinson staring back at him appraisingly. A pang of awkwardness struck him as she shook her head and turned away, wrapping her coat about her. Movement at her feet let Georgie know that Bluebell the cat was safe and sound.

He scooted closer on his soaked knees to the stormdrain, noticing how Pennywise perked up. “How’d you get in the sewer?” he asked.

“Storm bleeeew me away,” Pennywise replied. His eyes shifted out to the flushed rainfall behind them. “Blew the whole circus away.”

“Circus?”

“Oh yes!” Pennywise trilled. “Want to see, Georgie?”

The clown leaned back and Georgie leaned forth, and while he couldn’t see a single thing, he _could_ smell the circus, and he could hear it too! Frying funnel cakes and popping kettlecorn! Cartons of peanuts! Blue and pink cotton candy! Hot dogs grilled right there where you can see them! He could even smell the hot, footprint-packed dirt of a summer day, and the smell of people sweating and unshowered, the social-smell. And he could hear laughter and singing, kids his age singing a song he’d never heard before…

But all he _saw_ was water, Pennywise, and the nothing behind him.

“I can do everything _but_ see it,” Georgie complained. Pennywise ruffled, a gleam in his smiling eyes.

“That’s okay,” he drawled. “You can come see it s--”

A loud buzz exploded from Georgie’s walkie-talkie.

_“George Elmer Denbrough, what do you think you’re doing out in the rain?!”_

Georgie froze. Pennywise looked taken aback, his red mouth hanging open and his neck screwing back from the metallic screech.

Beet-red, Georgie fumbled the slippery walkie-talkie from his pocket. Darn it, darn it, darn it! He hadn't accounted on Mom figuring him out! He was sure Bill hadn't finked on him, but when Mom could practically sense disobedience like Spider-Sense in the comics, what did it matter?

He clicked the button on the side of the walkie-talkie and said “Nothing!”, knowing he'd be doomed no matter what he said.

 _“Get back to the house_ right now _, George!”_ the talkie warbled back. Its transmission wasn’t great to begin with, even worse in the thrash of rain, but Sharon Denbrough’s no-nonsense voice was clear as rainwater. _“Don’t make me come get you myself, you know better!”_

Georgie nodded and straightened up, away from the sewer. Embarrassed, post-startled tears bit at the rims of his eyes and he prayed hard that they blended in with the rain—he didn’t want Pennywise thinking he was a wuss too.

If Pennywise did notice, he gave no sign. Instead he swallowed and lifted the S.S. Georgie again, waving its bow slightly. “You want your boat back, right, Georgie?” he repeated, voice high in inquiry. “You don’t wanna lose it…”

The boat! Oh, Bill would kill him if he didn’t get the boat, _especially_ if he’d spent all that time talking with the clown who’d saved it!

…But then Pennywise might want to talk some more. He couldn’t risk it, not even if Bill got him.

Swallowing the pebble in his throat, Georgie backed away from the sewer.

“No thank you,” he managed, “I got to get going now.”

Then he stood up and rushed through the rain, back the way he came. He didn’t see the hand that shot out of the drain just a second too late, only to go sliding back.

He just hoped he wouldn’t get in too much trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I'm not making up Georgie's middle name. Also I imagine that grownups call him George, looking at the narration in the first chapter of the book.
> 
> Thank you for your lovely kudos and comments, people! :D Also a shoutout to my friend Erin_Knightly_Tetch for her enthusiasm about the Floatie AU, which has gotten me a lot of mileage in still working with it the past few weeks!! Go love on her!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their talk at the stormdrain, Georgie hadn't expected to see the clown again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updated 9/12/18. Warning for mild mention of cannibalism.

It had loved children. It really had.

Why else would It choose to be a clown?

Things were easy before, when it could just pop up, a clown without a circus, and enchant whole crowds of the little ones like a pied piper. Food was mere fuel, nothing more—Its _true_ purpose was the starry eyes and round faces of Its troupe. It had loved the children and they had loved It back—the lonely, orphaned creature who had put on a clown costume and dedicated Its life to entertaining children.

But clowns were meant to be human. And It, try as it might, was not even close to one of those.

It never forgot the day that a toddler had cowered and screamed before It. At the time, It hadn’t liked the feeling one bit. Somehow the little boy was _afraid_ of It— or rather of the form It had chosen as Its favorite, tweaked slightly so as not to offset the children too immediately. The form It had chosen _for_ the children.

The children, the children, the children. Who knew what the fickle, stupid _children_ would like or dislike.

Apparently, that toddler had been afraid of clowns. The notion annoyed It so terribly, so obsessively, that It snapped. It _gave_ him something to be afraid of.

It ate that first piece of boymeat alive and crossed a line, a line that It had not scurried back from since. Pennywise the Dancing Clown loved children, yes. But _It_ loved to feed. And _fear..._ fear was the richest, sweetest flavor It had ever encountered.

Its old ways were shed in favor of newfangled sewer systems, tiring of the constant upkeep needed to befriend its prey. No one thought to check down there. It no longer met any children that It didn’t already plan to slaughter.

But It kept two things from Its adolescent years: Its name, and Its fondness of children. Pennywise the Dancing Clown remained Pennywise the Dancing Clown, even when the merriment associated with the moniker had died.

As for the children that surrounded It, floating or no, It hoarded their things. A toy here, a bike there, some candy, clothes. If it mattered to the children, down it went, amassing to a swirling tower high in Its lair. That was as far as Its sentimentality went: material souvenirs.

Or so It thought.

* * *

 

When Georgie tumbled through the door, soaked and shivering, he and Bill were promptly grounded for the night. Georgie pouted a little but Bill, ever the altruist, wasn’t putting the matter away, even though his stutter was even worse under stress.

Their mother stopped fussing with Georgie’s slicker and boots immediately, eyes bearing down on her eldest. “ _Don’t_ you raise your voice at me, William Denbrough!”

“J-J-Jah-Georgie’s just a k-ki-kid!” Bill attempted indignantly. Sharon looked away from him mid-sentence. “He ha-ha-hasn’t been outss-ss-side for days and he needs to—”

“He _needs_ to get cleaned up and dried off before he ends up with the flu like you, is what he needs to do. You both know better than to go out in the rain in 40-degree weather.”

Georgie looked up at Bill helplessly, then looked down at his galoshes and squeaked them together. He wasn’t brave like his big brother. He dared not protest.

He dared not tell Bill that he’d lost the S.S. Georgie, either. He was almost sure Bill had gotten the hint when Georgie had returned with empty hands, but he wasn’t certain. Maybe it was better that way— he didn’t want Bill mad at him for his mistake.

* * *

 

After Georgie’s bath, he was sent to his room without dinner, same as Bill. But luckily, their walkie-talkies went unconfiscated, so things weren’t as black as they looked on the surface.

His stomach squalled beneath his pajama shirt as he stuffed his walkie-talkie under his pillow and clicked the button, muffling its tinny screech.

“Are you hungry? Over.”

A few seconds passed, marked by the sound of Zack Denbrough’s distant snoring. The walkie-talkie shrilled again and back under the pillow it went, Georgie’s heart thrumming with the thrill of disobedience.

“Yeah. Over.”

“I’m starving. Over.”

“Me too. Over.”

Georgie sifted the device in his hand, trying to think of what to say, and put it back under his pillow.

“D’you have stuff in your room? Over.”

“I had crackers but they’re all gone, over.” A pause. “There should be some left in the kitchen.”

‘In the kitchen?‘ Georgie mouthed to himself. Duh, there was food in the kitchen, but he couldn’t go down there. Going to Bill’s room was one thing, but all the way downstairs at night was another. The stairs were too close to Mom and Dad, and they were squeaky. Bill wasn’t really suggesting Georgie go down there...was he?

Georgie asked timidly.

“If you’re really hungry,” Bill replied, an audible shrug in his voice. “And quiet.”

Georgie craned his neck out as far as it would go, past the closed door. When it was night and all the lights are off, the whole house was like the big scary cellar two floors down. And worse, instead of Mom and Dad coming to save him from the cellar-dweller, they might come to get him too! And then he’d go _two_ nights without dinner, and then he’d starve, or something! No, he couldn’t possibly do it.

“You do it,” Georgie whispered.

Bill’s voice was barely audible in the fizzy screech that ensued. “I’m closer to Mom and Dad’s room.”

“But you can reach the stuff on the shelves.”

“So can you.”

“But you can do it _easier_ ,” the six-year-old complained.

“You don’t weigh as much so you won’t make as much noise going down the stairs,” Bill reasoned. Georgie marveled a little bit at the fact that Bill never, ever stuttered over the walkie-talkies. “Even if you do, I’ll tell Mom and Dad that it was my idea, so you won’t get in trouble.”

“Yes, I will.”

“No you won’t. Don’t be a wuss, Georgie.”

There it was. ‘Don’t be a wuss’, Bill’s trump card. Georgie clicked on his walkie-talkie to protest against it, but was cut off by his stomach yawning restlessly. He gulped. He was so hungry…

But he’d have to go into the kitchen in the dark.

But he was sooooo hungry!

But he’d get in trouble with Mom and Dad and maybe even the cellar monster.

…But then he’d get in trouble with Bill.

His guts clenched at the thought of upsetting Bill, the words _Don’t be a wuss_ floating through the room flatly. Unable to bear it, Georgie slid out of bed as quietly as he possibly could, afraid that Mom’s superhearing would pick up on the sound of rustling sheets. The hardwood floor was colder than he’d anticipated it.

“I’m going,” he mumbled into the walkie-talkie, then considered if he should take it with him. He decided no, in case Billy decided to speak up when Georgie was halfway down the stairs. He pressed it into the folded-back blanket and went.

He was incredibly thankful that the door to his room wasn’t creaky like the cellar or put on crooked like the guest room. He closed his eyes, counted to ten, sent a silent message to Bill that he _wasn’t_ a wuss, and padded out into the hall.

A particularly loud squeal of worn wood underfoot almost sent him scampering right back to his room, but instead it just froze him on the spot. Silence swelled guiltily for a moment, cut off by a loud snore from Zack some yards away. Georgie let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

Descending the stairs, he put both feet on one stair before proceeding to the next. Relief washed over him when all the stairs were done and he found himself in the living room. It was lighter here than in upstairs, thanks to the windows, and farther away from Mom and Dad’s room. He could move much more easily down here. Smiling shyly, he ambled to the kitchen by memory and reached for the light. Pinching the stubby plastic branch of the switch, he pushed it up.

The clown from the stormdrain stood caddy-cornered between the fridge and the cellar door.

Pennywise hadn’t looked all that big in the stormdrain, but he was _huge_ out of it, even bigger than Georgie’s dad. And his clown costume under the white ruffles on its neck had Georgie distantly wondering if he was actually a clown at all— instead of bright, happy colors, Pennywise wore grey silk and orangey pompoms on his front. He looked more like a jester from one of the King Arthur books Bill had given him, but even less happy.

Had there been any air in his lungs or sense in his head at the time, Georgie would have screamed. He would’ve run and let the clown be. He would’ve realized that the clown was _scary,_ scarier than anything he’d ever encountered in his young life, that he was a tiny little boy with a heart full of big adult fear and he didn’t know what to do with it. He shuffled backward, his little feet sticking to the linoleum gummily.

As it was, logic had swept clean out of him.

Pennywise did nothing to stop him. He stood completely still, eyebrows raised inquisitively.

A wild thought came upon the little boy: _It’s just a statue. There’s nothing be afraid of, somehow a clown statue got in our kitchen and I just had the luck of walking in on it, that’s all_ —

But then the clown not-statue’s knees buckled, pulling its entire body with it. Georgie’s voice squealed and scampered as the clown lowered himself to his height and bounced on his haunches like a child on a mattress. He was standing on tiptoe, somehow, the very tips of his pompommed boots supporting all of his weight. The bells on his costume jingled, just like they had back at the sewer, but they had lost all their cheer in this new, bizarre situation.

Georgie stared at Pennywise.

Pennywise stared at him.

 _He’s gonna eat me,_ Georgie thought. And then, _clowns don’t eat people. He’s just a clown. And he’s not—doing anything. He’s not eating me. Is he waiting?_ And then, _why is he waiting? What does he want?_

The clown blinked suddenly, head screwing back like Georgie had sneezed in his face. He slid a hand behind his back and pulled the S.S. Georgie out of seemingly nowhere.

Somehow, the comfortable feet of space between them had closed, though the kitchen looked no different. Georgie’s boat hovered maybe five inches from his nose, her bow pinched carefully between Pennywise’s thumb and forefinger. Georgie could see the brushstrokes of wax on her sides, her paper mast slightly crumpled from moisture.

“You forgot your boat,” the clown said. He swallowed, swaying back and forth childishly, and pushed the boat a little further into Georgie’s face. His voice was loud and very close. “I thought Bill was gonna kill you.”

Slowly, slowly, Georgie’s fingers touched the hull of the boat. Pennywise dropped it unceremoniously, pursing his lips and wide-eying the six-year-old as he took his boat in shaking little hands.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bev finds a clown in her bathtub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's baaaack! and edited a little from the original. I had taken it down because I wanted to turn UV into a full-fledged, sequential fanfic, but we all know damn well that that'll never happen. 
> 
> warning for clowns (obviously), mentions of violence/gore, mild mentions of bullying, and mentions of pedophilia/CSA.

Thank God almighty and everyone else up there that Alvin Marsh wasn’t home from work. The last thing Beverly needed was his “worrying”. 

But she proceeded to the bathroom instead of the more logical choice of her bedroom anyway, needing the extra precaution for a little bit. The lock on the door squeaked and thudded as she slid it into place, testifying its firmness. If her father ever tried to break down the door, the lock would hold true.

She caught her reflection in the mirror, blue eyes surrounded with dull pink sclera and freckles clashing against rashy cheeks. Hating it immediately, she faced the bathtub.

Georgie’s pet clown was already occupying half of the tub, long legs crossed daintily over the rim. She looked down--if she’d taken a few steps further, she would’ve tripped over its shoes.

“Long day?” It asked.

Beverly stared at the thing, remembering that it ate kids and played dress-up as a fake classmate of hers sometimes. That it had pulled apart that classmate-costume and stepped out as itself, an awful mockery of anything fun or human. Then, she remembered Bill’s brother laughing as he ran up to it, and the sincere, razor-toothed smile it flashed as it scooped him into its arms.

That’d been two weeks ago. Nothing much had happened since then. Georgie and all the big kids were still alive to tell the tale.

And, It, well…

It hadn’t hurt them. And It _was_ offering.

“You have no idea.” 

It—Pennywise, its name was Pennywise, right?-- smiled and patted the space left in the tub. Bev’s usual place waited for her.

She looked to the space, then to Pennywise, and back again, before sighing and wedging in. The silk of the clown’s bloomers brushed her knee.

“There’s this girl at my school. Greta Keene.”

Pennywise hummed lowly and replied, “The druggist’s girl. She buys her eyeliner at Costello’s across from his store. Plays tennis with Sally Mueller…Her best friend, right?”

“Right. She won’t get off my case--Greta, I mean. Today, she had her new guy chase me home in his car. Kept yelling shit like--”

“Slut,” the clown finished. “Whore, ‘Beaverly’, ‘Are your _boyyyy_ friends waiting for ya at home’--”

“You already know this story, don’t you?” Beverly accused.

“I do,” it said, smiling coyly.

“So I’m just boring you by telling it again?”

It pouted. “Nooo,” it said. “That’s not what you’re doing. You’re talking. Humans  _like_ to talk.”

The creature’s voice was throaty and underworked, and its owner either didn’t know or didn’t care how to control its pitch. Beverly supposed that made sense. 

“ _I_ don’t like to talk.”

“You want to, though. Soooo…you can. If you want.”

Beverly worked her mouth firmly, feeling unnaturally small next to Pennywise. Small...but maybe not afraid. 

No, _definitely_ not. What she was _afraid_ of was Dad coming home any minute and finding her in here, talking to a clown—or worse, by herself, since everything the clown did was like white noise to the adults. She was _afraid_ of going into her bedroom with no lock, which Dad had removed “in case there was a fire”. She was _afraid_ of those sleeping pills she’d found in here two days ago exactly. She was _afraid_ of what would happen when Dad found out she’d hidden them in her backpack. She was _afraid_ that people like Greta would find out and call her a druggie, or put two and two together somehow and call her a whore.

The roundish edge of the bathtub dug into her spine. Her feet popped up off the floor a few inches as she straightened back up.

“I don’t know why Greta hates me so much,” she confessed, bitterness flooding in. “You know, all through elementary school, when we were really little, she didn’t pay me any attention. She just kept to her friends. But then fifth grade hit--” Her voice caught on a memory of Greta smacking Beverly’s locker door closed, hard, while her fingers were resting on the rim. She’d gotten off scot-clean, crooning about how _sawwr-eeee_ she was and escorting her to the nurse with a pleased smile when a teacher asked her to. Her eyes narrowed to needles. “--and she flipped a switch. I don’t know _why,_ it’s probably because Mr. Keene’s such a creep and she wants someone to take it out on, but.”

The clown leaned in closer. “Buuuuut…?” 

Bev sighed.

“But my dad’s a creep too and I don’t treat everyone like trash,” she muttered.

Pennywise was silent, his large, oddly proportioned body completely still. Bev’s heart sank, to her frustration. She hadn’t wanted to feel dependent on the clown’s approval, but it’d happened anyway. Jesus, why did she _do_ this? Stupid, stupid, stupid--

“Envy,” Pennywise said.

The word was lost on her for a second.

“What’d’you mean, envy?”

“Envy,” it repeated simply. “She doesn’t hate you. She envies you.”

“I get that,” Bev lied. “But why? Her family makes more money than mine. She has more friends. Kids at school like her.”

“Looks. Humans value natural looks over makeup.” It was the second time she’d heard Pennywise refer to everyone around it as “humans”, and it sobered Bev to think that Pennywise couldn’t say ‘everyone’. “Greta’s no different. She’s jealous that you don’t have to work for looks, but she does.” It tittered, a sneer twisting burgundy lips. “And even then it doesn’t work.” 

“Sure.” Bev said coarsely.

The way she saw it “natural looks” was a problem in itself. Her father’s... _behavior,_ not to mention everyone else’s, had well and trained her out of wanting any comment about her appearance. A pretty face seemed to be the same thing as a sign that said ‘SLUT’ on your forehead. Sure, it had gotten her free cigarettes and favors a few times, but that hardly seemed like a fair trade.

Pennywise, who had quieted beside her again, declared, “Humans make no sense.” 

“What, and you do?”

“ _My_ kind aren’t driven by the incessant need for _sex_ ,” it snarked, lifting a hairless eyebrow. Bev gaped, unable to believe it had said that word. “ _And_ we don’t stomp on each other’s faces just to play holes and sticks.”

“I _really_ don’t think that’s what’s driving Greta here, Pen.”

“Ohh? She thinks you’re a competitor. So she wants to up her chances. Unconfident enemies are dead ones.” It reached a hand behind her back, and after a little wriggling, eventually maneuvered it to rest on the top of her head delicately. “Stan’s birds do it, too. Humans are the same as any animals. But their natural weapon is their words.”

Bev considered the hand tickling the short red curls on the crown of her head. Her frown eventually lost its bend.

“So Greta’s acting like a bitch. As in, a literal _bitch._ ”

“Mm-hmm.” The clown put a finger to her mouth briefly, as if jokingly shushing her for her language.

 “You don’t suppose there’s any way to get her to stop, is there?”

 It laughed quietly. “You’re free to try putting her in her place; you’ve always been.” A pause. “She makes too big a deal of herself. Of looks.”

“She sure thought _you_ were hot, though.” 

Pennywise gasped and coughed, turning down its face to give her the full effect of its disgusted grimace. Beverly cracked a grin.

“Geez, don’t look too shocked. Can’t you read feelings? She was _feeling_ all over you.”

“ _Another_ reason not to go to school,” the clown groused.

 Beverly nudged his rib with an elbow. “Oh, come on. All the kids are into you when you’re Bob. It’s a lot better than getting wet trash poured on your head.”

“I don’t want little babies flirting with me.” Pennywise harrumphed.

“Join the club. I don’t want every guy I know lying about sleeping with me.” The creature growled quietly in acknowledgment. “Or a bunch of middle-aged men trying to look down my shirt.” The growling became less human and more throaty.

“I could do away with them,” Pennywise mentioned. “Do away with them like mice in a springtrap. That’s what the pharmacist is afraid of. Did you know that? I could--”

 “No,” Bev cut him off. And then, hoping neither of them heard it, “Not yet.”

 Pennywise stared at her before harrumphing again and settling back into place, hand still stroking Beverly’s hair. Of course, Beverly knew the effort of calling Penny off was probably in vain. The thing didn’t give orders, despite being the obvious eldest of the Losers, but it sure as hell didn’t take them, either. _Maybe_ he would listen to Bev for a little while, but the second Keene or anyone reared up again, they were sure to end up floating, missing, gored out, or all three.

Which brought things back to…

“I can deal with Greta.” Beverly announced firmly. “Like I said, she’s a bitch, but she’s still just a kid. Besides, if I come crying to--” -- _you--_ “--someone else every time this stuff happens, I’m never gonna get over it.”

 Pennywise sighed. “I don’t mind you talking to me, Bevs.”

“I didn’t say I was gonna stop doing that. I just don’t want to sic you on ‘er for being a bully in middle school, when it’ll come back to bite her in the ass anyway.”

“Ohh? How so?”

“Wait ‘til we’re seniors. She’ll be all washed up and out of style by then,” Bev declared. She’d held that reservation for years, but now she was confident in it--almost looking forward to seeing it, in a barbaric, unfair way. “It’s all even worse from there. Maybe she’ll get disowned or evicted or whatever.” 

She glanced up at Pennywise’s face. His features were smoothed back in an expression Beverly assumed to be dubiousness.

“Look, it sounds cheap compared to like, your dead body floating in greywater or something. But think of it this way, there’s only so much suffering you can have when you’re dead, right?”

The clown, unnervingly enough, looked very tempted to say something like _“Wrong”_ , but apparently decided against it for argument’s sake. That, Bev decided, was fine.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike gets an interesting visitor at the library.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mike's boss of the library instead of having a drug problem yes Andy Muschietti I'm looking at YOU.
> 
> Another edit-and-reupload. Expect interludes of Mike's journal entries.
> 
> Warning for death mention.

Monday  
10/14/12

Maybe I’ll never know what made Pennywise choose us.

I remember that day we all went to the quarry and thought about it. Eddie diagnosed Pennywise as a defect of its species--stunted, or emotionally maldeveloped. Stan agreed. George, Ben and Beverly thought Pennywise was just lonely and not built to think like a human. Richie had whatever explanation suited his next joke, but I can’t remember what any of them were. Bill, the diehard thinker he is, kept probing and researching for the real answer long after the rest of us dropped the matter.

Me...I grew up around all kinds of animals. Sometimes when animals lose their children, they adopt abandoned ones, regardless of their species. Was Pennywise like that? Had he tried and failed, and taken us in as surrogates? Or had he known, omnisciently, that we were the only recourse for him on a planet where he had nothing like him?

I’m back to wondering these things because Ben died last week in a construction accident. He’d designed a business office that took him down to Texas, and from what I’ve been following of him, he liked to oversee the construction on-and-off. He has a scar on the top of his head from the beam that totaled him.

He’s in the computer lab now, looking up everything he can on himself. I can practically hear Richie calling him a narcissist, but for God’s sake, the man just died. He has the right to be just a little self-absorbed.

He’s not a ghost. He came by yesterday night blubbering about what happening, and from what I gather, he can still feel everything. His shoulders are tangible at the very least. Ben’s a bona fide copy of himself--except that he’s dead now. There’s no way Pennywise isn’t somehow involved in this.

When Pennywise disappeared, he still left us signs. Nothing big or grandiose, just storms, or ice-cream truck jingles But they were signs—that he was still there, that he saw us. I’ve been looking for one ever since Ben walked into the lab.

Nada. 

I have the feeling that just Ben isn’t going to do the trick. He’ll come back when all of us kids are back home.

-MWH


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Think, and it'll be real.

 Something wasn’t right.

It had been roused from sleep by the death of a boy Georgie’s age, Its stomach rumbling with the promise of boymeat and fear. And fear was rife, moreso than it was almost thirty years before. Having seemingly mastered their world, humans had turned to fearing the things they couldn’t control, and the more they controlled, the more they feared one another.

But _fear…_ it had somehow worked against it this first time around.

How could that be so? It couldn’t. It had _never_ been. It got its way, It fed, and repeat. Nothing had resisted It before. So It swallowed its anger and tried again in the night, very much intent to squelch this outlier and get on with the feast.

Only to falter.

There was fear, yes, so much fear than from before. But it was accompanied now by a different scent—sharper, more clarifying, like a knife through water. A scent that It had only experienced during sleep.

 The scent of an Other.

Part of one, that is. A small, waiting fraction of Georgie Denbrough was deeply, irrefutably Other. The Other reached out to It, neither embracing nor lunging, knowing nothing and yet everything. Neither inferior or superior to It in power. Paranormally simple and simply paranormal.

How?

It bent and produced the paper boat that had drawn Georgie to Its attention in the first place. The Other whirred, brightening and extending through little arms and fingertips to bring the boat closer to its vessel. Eyes, shedding some of their terror in lieu of curiosity, stared and questioned.

It didn’t answer that question, whatever it may have been.  Instead, It allowed Georgie to walk around It, paper boat in hand, resisting the force of habit to trip the little boy or grab him by the neck and squeeze. Violence and feral aggression pulled taut in It, twitching its limbs, but its mouth stayed chalk-dry as Georgie stood on tiptoe and sifted through the pantry.

It was increasingly eager to stop tonight in its tracks as soon as It could manage. It remembered its nice face

_(blue eyes, rabbit teeth, how long had it been since it enjoyed acts like this)_

and Georgie marveled at how quickly and silently It spindled up the stairs before him. The six-year-old’s fascination almost brought a smile to Its face.

_(how long had it been since)_

Almost.

It hesitated as Georgie made his own way up, attention drifting towards the brother’s room. Another fraction of Other, slightly bigger this time, and idling, was situated behind it, buried inside a sleeping

_(boymeat)_

body. A growl bulged in Its throat.

And then It was gone, knowing Georgie had asked It what was wrong and not

_(NOT! not! not! not!)_

caring.

As It unwrapped from its humanoid shell and crouched, raking its talons through the mud, It suspected the Turtle. It wouldn’t have put the idea past him—wrapping up one of Its own

_(whatever It was)_

in a human cage. Or multiple.

_(Why’re they here why’re they here why’re they here whyretheyherewhyretheyhereMaturinwhyrethey)_

It hissed again. It should kill the Other now, while at least two of their hosts stood weak and infantile before It. It had spent

_(eternities)_

millennia upon millennia alone and It wanted to share Its domain with no one. Yes. Kill the Other. Stamp them out. That would teach the Turtle. Sending Others Its way.

But had he?

A niggling feeling told It _no._

Perhaps. Perhaps the Other had never known the Turtle. The old coot had no idea that they were here. He had not put them there.

A quick, unbidden flash, an octet of inhuman cries, knifed through Its mind. It snarled and buried Its head in Its arms.

Was it possible that the Other was _left_ to It, or that Its very presence had created them? Think and it’ll be real. Perhaps it had thought, sometime during its last sleep, of an Other.

Think it and it’ll be real. Yes. The Others were just old enough to think. _Its_ Others— Its, for it could be no other way. They could thrive. They knew of It.

They had waited for It. Now that one knew that It was awake, surely the others would come to It, too. They would find each other. They would find It, too. They would join It one day.

The little boy and all the Others— they were Its. It could not ignore them. And It would find them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh, not too sure about the quality of this. I'm trying to keep Penny's thoughts in the dark as much as I can, but I guess I'm kinda desperate to add anything to this, really.


End file.
